On the whole, this custom has about the same disadvantages and advantages which Warton points out as resulting from the four rhymes of a Spenserian stanza; -- the advantages, -- picturesqueness, ingenuity, discovery of new beauties: the disadvantages, -- art not concealed by art, tautology, imparity of similitudes, a caricature of typology, painful and affected elaboration.

And observing that five was the antient conjugal or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation which I shall give in his own words; “The antient numerists made out the conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity, the active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in generative societies.”